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F5 Shape Security vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 Shape Security
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Fraud Detection and Prevention (19th)
Imperva Application Securit...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
148
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (3rd), Bot Management (1st), API Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. F5 Shape Security is designed for Fraud Detection and Prevention and holds a mindshare of 1.7%, down 1.8% compared to last year.
Imperva Application Security Platform, on the other hand, focuses on Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection, holds 7.4% mindshare, up 7.3% since last year.
Fraud Detection and Prevention Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Shape Security1.7%
ThreatMetrix4.4%
Riskified3.0%
Other90.9%
Fraud Detection and Prevention
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform7.4%
Cloudflare11.2%
Radware Cloud DDoS Protection Service6.7%
Other74.7%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Nikolay Dimitrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer at Paysafe / IBM
Easy to configure and blocks bot attacks for web users
The solution is deployed on the F5 cloud. The solution's real-time analytics help you see what has been blocked. It helps to see whether the attack category was an automation attack or a fake browser. F5 Shape Security has a normal dashboard. We are doing F5 Shape Security migrations for 30 customers. F5 Shape Security uses Javascript. For a lot of competitors, the Javascript can be reverse-engineered by attackers to bypass the protection. F5 Shape Security has machine learning authentication of the Java script. If you had hacked it, the encryption would have been changed. It's really hard for attackers to reverse engineer the F5 Shape Security JavaScript. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
reviewer2818155 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Application protection has improved and reporting and dashboards still need refinement
I believe Imperva Application Security Platform should have a more interactive wizard. While the dashboard is good, it could be more eye-catching. Based on my perspective, I recommend modifying the dashboards, especially the main dashboard where I can see the traffic hit count, alerts, and other latest information. In terms of reporting, I find it challenging to create reports; in my earlier days, it was difficult. Over time, I have learned how to create reports, but it should be easier to do so. I have used other tools such as firewalls or SolarWinds, where creating a report is straightforward and does not take much time, unlike in Imperva, where I have to add many elements. Modifications in the integration aspects would also be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of configuration."
"F5 Shape Security's most valuable feature is performance."
"It works right out of the box once you integrate the application."
"The solution is very affordable; it's based on the average traffic utilization, not the DDoS traffic, so if you're being DDoSed, you don't pay extra for the absorption of the DDoS traffic."
"The solution is very good at intercepting traffic before it gets to our data centers."
"I love the solution's capabilities and the ease of the installation."
"Imperva is really amazing, feature wise and performance wise."
"On the activity log, I can see the exact details, the visit, and the threat."
"Imperva DDoS is fairly stable, and its availability is quite high."
"Its inline transferring mode is the most valuable because it is 100% transparent. When you change the IP, there is no change on the network side. If you can't and want to try to reach an IP, you can reach the server IP. There are many other advanced security features in it. The smallest appliances of Imperva can handle the highest traffic at a customer site. For example, a smaller appliance from Imperva can provide you the same security as an F5 product."
 

Cons

"The tool's price is high."
"I want the solution's custom exclusion rules to be more granular."
"I would suggest that Imperva Application Security Platform should include new features combined with AI."
"The product could use a broader scope in the area of policies."
"It would be nice to have a mobile app as a dashboard interface instead of the web administration, but the service is really great."
"They guarantee to fix your problem within 15 minutes, but they don’t always keep their word."
"Analytics in the area of risk need to be improved to supply more information to the users for creating better environments."
"Imperva DDoS does not provide version control."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is very expensive."
"The hardware being more expensive compared to other vendors poses a challenge, along with a need for improvement in the cloud WAF offerings."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is moderately priced."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."
"The cost is on par with other solutions such as Cloudflare and Akamai."
"The license is on a yearly basis."
"The solution's pricing is an issue."
"There are a couple of different licensing models."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."
"Imperva charges us based on bandwidth, which is better than other vendors that charge us according to data transfer."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise71
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise. For example, the initiation of an attack on the endpoint level cou...
 

Also Known As

Shape Security
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wells Fargo, Loblaw, JetBlue, Zoosk
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about ThreatMetrix, BioCatch, NICE and others in Fraud Detection and Prevention. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.